Meet My Team: Rob Birdwell - MacGyver of The Standing Desk Revolution

Meet My Team: Rob Birdwell - MacGyver of The Standing Desk Revolution

Week Three of Meet My Team

I have been here a year now and I have learned many new technologies, words, and even developed a taste for geek humor. Besides the technical "stuff" that I have immersed myself in, one thing I am continually learning is, what a talented and amazing team I work with, not to mention, they are just plain cool too. 

So, I decided you all should have the chance to get to know them too (you will thank me, just trust me).

Meet Rob Bidwell 

Rob joined ProWorks a decade ago as a Senior Software Developer and a contributing technical author.  He is a graduate of the Grove School of Music in Los Angeles (Composing/Arranging Program), Rob has nearly 20 years experience writing, arranging, and producing music for film, stage, and multi-media applications. Software consulting, application development, web, Flash, C#, DirectX and other technologies are all part of his toolkit. 

In My Experience

Like everyone else on the team, from day one, Rob immediatley treated me like I had been part of the ProWorks family.  I was never the new kid.  Finding out he is an accomplished musician wasn't really a surprise because when you think about the science of music development and web development that are many obvious parralells. 

My best memory of Rob thus far has to be him bringing the standing desk revolution to ProWorks. He decided to have a standing work desk one day and the next day he had one constructed mainly out of pop cans and duck tape. His passion for it caught on and now all but a few of us have standing desks and yes I have one too.

The collection of cassette tapes on his desk always make smile too.  Him and I can always find joke to crack or a crazy idea to run with in the middle of a team meeting, off in our own little world.


Adventures with Rob BirdwellIn Rob's Words

...blah, blah, blah...stuff about me, by me...
(that didn't fly so then he wrote this)

I initially got involved with computers to help me write and produce music - I don't recall having much interest in the programming aspect. I started with a Comodore 64, a Dr. T MIDI Interface and connected my Roland MT-32, Prophet 2000 and Casio synthesizers along with an Alesis drum machine.  Try as I might though, I did not make a splash on the mid-80's techno-pop scene (although I'm still working on that!)  But my interest and appreciation of computing, and especially the code that makes the machines inter-operate, began to grow over time.  

I bought Charles Petzold's "Programming Windows" when my wife was pregnant with our first child.  That book and the many late nights I spent studying and learning how to code were great investments.  My area of study was mainly music, not computer science, so I was very fortunate to have a good friend (Dean Wills) willing to mentor me to help build my programming "chops" - that was extremely valuable and eventually helped me to land my first job as a programmer.
Flash forward to my work at ProWorks - my working home for over 10 years now and counting - I love it here!  A creative and talented bunch - everyone has something extremely valuable to offer.
I've seen many different technologies come and go - the learning in this line of business is never-ending; always something new to learn and explore.  As important as technology can be, I think the ProWorks team does a great job of taking the time to listen to our clients, understand their unique business needs, and ultimately work with them to create solutions that increase the value of their business.  
Yes, a good deal of technology/geekery goes into any client project - having a good sense of humor definitely helps too - but the planning, teamwork and the trust that grow throughout the development process are equally vital components to any successful project.
Creativity is a big part of my daily life - whether in music or programming, the ability to come up with a creative approach to any given challenge is a good start.  The ability summon creative solutions after other seemingly reasonable attempts have failed - well, that's the key to success.

 

A bit of Rob's (non-programming) creative side:

 

Connect with Rob

Aesthetic with Rob Birdwell

Author

ProWorks Team

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